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The Watering Hole, Monday, August 13th, 2012: Monday Medley

An article written by George Lakoff, titled “Dumb and Dumber” discusses the term “Low-Information Voter” and the insult implied in the phrase. Here’s a few snippets:

“The liberal use of the term “low-information voters” reveals where liberals need to get real. First, liberals need to recognize that conservatives have a moral system that is different from theirs and that they vote on the basis of it. They need to understand the conservative moral system and how it works, if they are to defeat it. And they need to understand the power of their own moral system and make use of it.”

“…they [liberals] need to understand how brains work: If the facts don’t fit morally based frame-circuits, it’s the frame-circuits that stay and the facts that go out the window.”

“…Never use the other side’s language. And always say out loud the moral framing needed for comprehending the facts. For example, health care is a matter of both freedom and life. If you have cancer and no health care, you are not free and you could die! With the right narrative, it is a powerful message, and one that tells a deep truth.”

Third and final: also from The Weather Channel, a look at how the higher temperatures in New York and the Northeast are affecting the breeding rates of certain butterflies. One species is the endangered Karner Blue butterfly – which, oddly enough, “…was first identified and named by novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov,” according to Wikipedia.

Karner Blue Butterfly (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

This is our daily open thread — go ahead, get your coffee (or tea, or whatever) and get your Monday started!

Language does matter. I read something on Kos a few days ago which made sense to me. The writer (whose name I don’t remember, sorry) suggested that we should stop referring to Ryan’s demand shedding Medicare plan as a program with vouchers and call the vouchers what they are, coupons. The theory was that people perceive a voucher as something you exchange for the desired item, and view a coupon as a discount on the desired item. Ryan’s coupons would not cover the cost of health insurance. For the very old and very sick, they would be as useless as the discount plans that were sold as health insurance to anyone foolish or desperate enough to purchase “insurance” based on a sign stapled to a telephone pole.

I have always referred to Ryan’s Medicare program as a coupon program and that is exactly how I explain it to people. I tell them that they might get something like a 10% discount coupon which they can use towards paying their health insurance premium which only becomes more expensive as a person ages.

Ben Smith reported yesterday that the Ryan pick was Romney’s idea. According to a “top Republican,” it “everybody was against [Ryan] to start with only Romney for”:

“Romney’s aides have stressed publicly in the 24 hours since Romney electrified conservatives with his choice that the pick was the governor’s alone. They have been less forthcoming on the flip side: That much of his staff opposed the choice for the same reason that many pundits considered it unlikely — that Ryan’s appealingly wonky public image and a personality Romney finds copasetic will matter far less than two different budget plans whose details the campaign now effectively owns.”

I can only imagine that Romney feared losing votes from the Far Right, not to Obama (d’oh) but to apathy. Because other than that, there’s no reason to choose a Wingnut for VP. The people raving for Ryan would never vote for Obama in a million years and this wins no points at all among so-called “moderates.”

I don’t think it was about the voters, amazingly enough. Romney was afraid of being de-legitimized as a candidate at the convention by rabid teabaggers, that’s why he had to choose Ryan. Now, Mittens will sail through the convention with few problems, will very likely lose in 2012, and the extreme rightwing has their pretty poster boy to prop up as a Prez candidate in 2016. Romney will be forgotten on November 7.

“[O]n abortion and women’s health care, there isn’t much daylight between Ryan and, say, Michele Bachmann. Any Republican vice presidential candidate is going to be broadly anti-abortion, but Ryan goes much further. He believes ending a pregnancy should be illegal even when it results from rape or incest, or endangers a woman’s health. He was a cosponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a federal bill defining fertilized eggs as human beings, which, if passed, would criminalize some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization. The National Right to Life Committee has scored his voting record 100 percent every year since he entered the House in 1999. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” he told the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack in 2010. “You’re not going to have a truce.” ‘

I would worry about Romney and his VP prick handling a national crisis that last more than a few hours. Romney’s response would be “We have a good neighbor to the north” and Ryan’s response would be “Save the embryos first”.

Ryan…passed a bill into law in July 2000 that renames a post office in his district. Thanks to Ryan, the post office on 1818 Milton Ave. in Janesville, Wis., is now known as “Les Aspin Post Office Building.”

Ryan saw one of his bills become law was in December 2008, with legislation to change the way arrows (as in bows and arrows) are hit with an excise tax. Specifically, his bill amended the Internal Revenue Code to impose a 39-cent tax per arrow shaft, instead of a 12.4 percent tax on the sales price. The bill also “includes points suitable for use with arrows in the 11 percent excise tax on arrow parts and accessories.”

Sarah Palin announced that she will not be speaking at the 2012 Republican National Convention, saying it’s time to give others a chance. “This year is a good opportunity for other voices to speak at the convention and I’m excited to hear them,” she said in a statement to Fox News’s Greta van Susteren.

Oh, how cynical of you! At some point in the future, she’ll tell her fans that the RNC had begged her to speak at the convention but she was too gracious. Or, she’ll tell them that the Republicans would have won if only they’d let her speak.

Paul Ryan is totally against abortion and against providing federally funded family planning, as well as international family planning programs, and voted to deny birth control coverage to federal employees, but he and his wife only have three children.

Why aren’t they up to their necks in squalling brats? Oh yeah, they’re rich and have the best health insurance in the world. “I got mine, fuck y’all.”

Questions you’ll not heard asked of Paul Ryan – so you’ve voted to keep birth control out of federal employees plans and are zealously anti-abortion ….. but you’ve only got three kids – are you still getting some?

This morning on Morning Edition on NPR, the host was talking about Paul Ryan’s past. It was mentioned that Ryan comes from a wealthy family. There was never a mention about Ryan’s dependence on Social Security.

After a rough Sunday, I just had our Honey at the vet. She’s either had a stroke or she has a brain tumor. The vet gave her an injection that will give her a sense of well-being. If she had a stroke, she should improve in about five days; if she has a brain tumor, she’ll feel okay for a couple days, and will then decline.

Given the symptoms I’ve seen over the last few months, I don’t think she had a stroke.

Oh my. So glad I came by to see this. It makes my heart hurt. It is so hard to watch them when they’re uncomfortable. So glad the vet had something to help her for the time being. I don’t even know what to say.

Jennifer Rubin loves her some Paul Ryan. Do you know who else saw the collapse coming? The Dems, including Obama and Biden, who were voting against Bushco’s madness instead of pushing the agenda like Ryan did.

The collapse didn’t surprise me. When I read that Cheney was dumping his stock and buying bonds instead, that was a signal to me so I moved my money, just like Cheney did. Every three months, my employer was laying off employees and yet the stock market was high. That too, was a signal that it was a phony high. I got lucky that time.

Indeed. Frankly, most sane people saw it coming and that includes the perpetrators. I think that things just got a bit out of hand and the big collapse was supposed to happen after the elections of 2008. Pretty much everyone knew that the Dems would win big even without said collapse. Of course, those same perpetrators have managed to convince a whole lot of people that it was all the Dems fault anyway.

“Republican Vice Presidential Pick Paul Ryan sold shares in a number of financial companies including Citigroup, General Electric, Wachovia, and JP Morgan Chase on the same day as then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held a closed meeting with congressional leaders during the financial crisis.”

How will Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan impact Mitt Romney’s chances? It hurts the GOP ticket, seniors are worried the plan will gut Medicare 6.04% (1,158 votes) Big help. Voters want to see an honest plan for closing the deficit, and this is it 71.55% (13,715 votes) Open question, depends which side does a better job defining it 22.41% (4,295 votes) Total Votes: 19,168

If only… if only the entire student body was present, then we could have had even MORE deaths and MORE calls for arming ALL the students to prevent this sort of thing in the future, which of course WILL happen again and we’ll have the same circle-jerk arguments by the NRA morans.

Gun humpers think that guns protect them from death, and time after time, they are proven wrong. Cops are trained not to shoot into a crowd of people, pistol-packin’ morons are not. One of these days, the gun humpers’ wet dream will come true — probably in Texas or Arizona — and several civilians with guns will unload on a crazed shooter. The shooter will walk away, and the gun nuts’ death toll will be higher than that of the crazed shooter.

“…what the whole Beltway media crowd has done – is to slot Ryan into a role…of the thoughtful, serious conservative wonk. In reality, Ryan is nothing like that; he’s a hard-core conservative, with a voting record as far right as Michelle Bachman’s, who has shown no competence at all on the numbers thing. What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about. And apparently the trick still works.” — Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning Economist

That’s become a meme among the trolls over at the Plum Line: “Obama is running the most vicious and dishonest presidential campaign in the history of the universe (which is 6000 years). Lies, lies, and more lies about poor widdle Mittens.”

I was watching when that dipshidiot when she called Obama’s tax policy “collectivist.” That was the day I stopped watching the show…until today. I didn’t see her intro, so I thought she was off today, but noooooooo.

Awesome. On my way to the golf course I pass an osprey nest on a telephone pole. Two weeks ago I spotted one on a nearby pole, one standing on the nest and a third head peaking out from the edge! I can’t be sure but I think last weekend I saw two small heads. Hard to see driving by not a good spot to stop and try get a closer look.

I’ve been passing this osprey nest for 19 years and every year it’s occupied!

The reports are stating this was not on the university proper. This unfolded in a residential area outside the campus. An eviction notice being served – and obviously the renter has a gun ‘for protection’.

Thanks Ebb. Just before we saw the cows my wife said “I guess no cows are on their summer vacation.” Around the corner there were a group of 10 or so. Farmers are allowed to put their cows in this area for the summer. Lord knows how they gather them all up before the winter!!

There is this hike and another nearby that always have an abundance of mushrooms. Especially if we have a wet spring-early summer. We have seen people picking them. We know as much about mushrooms as Romney knows about living paycheck to paycheck so we are never tempted to pick any.

MIAMI — Mitt Romney is holding a campaign event at a Miami restaurant owned by a convicted cocaine trafficker.

Romney appeared Monday evening at El Palacio de los Jugos, a restaurant owned by Reinaldo Bermudez. Court records show that Bermudez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1999 and served three years in federal prison.

Media reports in November 1997 said that Bermudez was one of 12 people accused in a Colombian drug smuggling operation. Agents seized about 2,850 pounds of cocaine at Florida ports.

As a convicted felon, Bermudez wouldn’t be eligible to vote in Florida unless the governor and the Cabinet restore his rights.

A phone call placed to the restaurant wasn’t answered. The Romney campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

I’m not sure that Mittens is smart enough to realize it but it’s entirely possible that he got the nomination, much like Ol’ Flippy McSpin in 2008, because he’s viewed as a sacrificial lamb by the GOP powers that be. If he does by some chance win they can simply cast him off when things turn sour and just assert that he was always a RINO.

The “Conservative Majority Fund,” and presumably the NRA, is running a super scary commercial about the United Nations, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama having secret meetings to take away everyone’s guns and sign away our national sovereignty.

Sadly, there are morons in northern Idaho and eastern Washington who will swallow that bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.

In fairness; they did walk it back and assert that they meant to say it’s his fault that we haven’t already passed drought relief but I have yet to see any indication that GOoPers, in the House or in general, have proposed any such relief measures. Indeed. The standard GOP stance is that, if the scientists aren’t lying and there even is a drought, God is in charge of those things and bailing out farmers would just turn them into gay communists.

The harvest season approaches here in the Emerald Triangle…
Interesting story heard at the water cooler today:
A typical scruffarian was spotted along the highway with a cardboard sign that read “Will trim for food”. (trimming is the term for harvesting buds)
A local-type pulled over, yanked the sign away and told the dude to get out of town.
It’s getting tense… imminent raids this week… keeping my head down and nose clean.

I got out of the habit of watching The Ed Show back when the Mets were starting to look like they might be worth my time and attention, for a change. As things stand now, I’ll be ready to start tweeting the show more often. So, it was a combination of me not tweeting very much at all, and of my not tweeting very good at all. 🙂

“This tragedy raises once again the question of what can be done to help prevent events like this from occurring. I guess I’m not referring to any particular legislation. I’m just saying this is something that needs to make thoughtful consideration.” — Romney on the Texas A&M shootings today.

Now I remember why I stopped building fiberglass planes more than 10 years ago. I ruined a shirt and a pair of shorts, have cat hair liberally glued to my plane, and epoxy up to my elbows. But? It’s really, really, strong!

Ha. I spent a summer helping build surfboards. I no longer have the ability to smell, but have an abnormal relationship with fiberglass. Gawd I love the feel, the texture, the shimmering reflective color, and above all its strength…I better stop with that. 😉

My baby checks into her dorm at college on Friday. Maybe I’ll be back to my old self after that. Now I’m more worried about Zooey and Honeybump. Do you think I should worry that one dogs ate some cold hot glue sticks?

Bill Press had John Nichols on this morning. Nichols said some outfit did a poll and 40% of Wisconsin voters didn’t know who Ryan was, and only 36% of those that did approved of him. He said Ryan’s district has no large cities, and no TV stations, and he’s been getting elected largely through just being the incumbent. So he might not even help Romney carry Wisconsin.

The extra scrutiny of being the VP candidate could even result in him losing his district.

Looks like Paul Ryan ran into the townspeople today.
Oh, there’s nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There’s an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We’ve never been without.
That we recall.

The high school aged crew I’ve had for the last 8 weeks are whining they didn’t have a summer vacation.
They have been paid well to come every day (most of them), do a minimum of actual thinking about what they’re doing, show little or no initiative, flirt, disrupt, text, listen to their iPods and throw up objection to any new idea.

On second thought, except for being paid, I guess it has been a lot like school in their experience.

Yeah I remember those high school summers. At 2 bucks an hour wages, that’s what they got. Didn’t have the ability to text, scour the innertubes, listen to my songs downloaded, but I was able to bitch, and ditch. Actually mostly slept. Ah to be a teenager again. 😉